For Their Capacity

This is where they go running,
with their pencil shadows
stretched across the road,

trailing hot breath that billows
from a furnace of aching lungs,
driven by their cold, balled fists.

This morning is theirs,
the marathon matchsticks,
inching along the green, the stone wall,

and they refuse the break, the rest.
For their capacity, they are crowned
by the crest of the rising sun.